Wind Tunnel Tests Reveal Pterosaurs Could Soar for Hours
The ancient pterosaur was a slow flier that coasted on light air currents and could soar for hours. Colin Palmer, a graduate student at the University of Bristol, arrived at this conclusion by employing his expertise as a turbine engineer to carry out first-of-a kind tests on models of pterosaur wings in a wind tunnel. Pterosaurs were enormous reptiles (but not dinosaurs) that lived and flew until 65 million years ago. Fossil records show that their unique limbs could have supported flight, but unlike bat wings or bird wings, they were made of a living membrane reinforced with muscle and tissue, stretched like a sail over a single long bone. Without a living analogue, the mechanics of pterosaur take-off, flight and landing, have been part conjecture and part theory. A study published November 15 in PLoS ONE filled in some pieces of the puzzle, and offered one...